RBR: The Dictator

After becoming a pop culture sensation with Borat and then bombing hard with Bruno, I wasn't sure what to expect from this latest entry from Sasha Baron Cohen as an evil dictator from the fictional nation of Wadiya. Now having seen the movie, I'm still not quite sure what I saw because I felt like I saw an unfinished product. With cheap production values and an under 80 minute runtime there wasn't much to enjoy here. Occassionally some of Cohen's political barbs scored a laugh, but most fell flat and too many of them were unnecessarily repeated. I'm not sure if we needed every well known song used in the film to be converted into some Middle Eastern version of the song. As for the rest of the cast, the talents of Ben Kingsley and Anna Faris get wasted here. About the only person who seems like he's trying is Jason Mantzoukas, playing a nuclear scientist who is frequently at odds with Cohen's character. But even there scenes don't seem to reach their comedic potential as their back-and-forths get truncated before they can really let loose. There's no doubt that Cohen can be very clever and funny, but most of the material in here feels like he's just going for obvious sterotypes for cheap laughs. While its not completely devoid of laughs, this still feels like a major disappointment. If you want to see this, wait for it to come out on cable; by that point, they'll have probably edited it down to under an hour. Rating: **